Toyota working on solar-powered car

Well, if you think Detroit has problems… you’re right.
But so often nowadays we hear America’s auto giants compared to Toyota, which of course cut a pretty commanding figure throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s in producing fuel-efficient cars that Americans wanted.

We hear today, though, from The Associated Press’s Yuri Kageyma, that Toyota is struggling and will report its first annual loss in 70 years. A strong yen and the global economic downturn loom large.

That’s all just the background, though, to the news that despite its troubles — or perhaps because of them? — Toyota is quietly experimenting with a solar-powered car. Kageyma reports:

Toyota is a leader in green technology, and executives have stressed that they won’t cut back on environmental research despite its troubles.

Unfortunately, The AP story is a pickup from The Nikkei, a Japanese business publication written in English, and The Nikkei appears to require subscription if you want to read the story. I’ll update this post if I find a free way to get the original story.

Update 2:38 p.m.: A comment by an apparently knowledgeable Dateline Earth reader led us to do a little more research, which shows that no matter what our friends at The AP may have written about Toyota’s enviro record, it’s listed by Corporate Accountability International in the activist group’s Hall of Shame.

Reason: Toyota opposed Congressional efforts to tighten Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, and industry groups Toyota belongs to are fighting parallel efforts at the state level. Scott Learn of The Oregonian also wrote about Toyota’s not-so-green side a while ago.